'Hands up those who think the practice of asking for hands up in school is wrong?" Scans the room. No hands. Waits the suggested 30 seconds. Scans again. Still no takers.

The Department for Education and Skills (DfES) has issued guidance suggesting that the practice of asking for hands up in class leaves many schoolchildren behind, and while the department has added the magnificently ironic caveat, "We would categorically never prescribe what teachers do in their own classrooms", there is definitely the suggestion that the teacher-led discussion has had its lard, and we shouldn't really be using it any more.

The reason for this is that, as any teacher will tell you, it is always the same five or six pocket battleship-sized egos coming up with the answers. The rest of the class are left mute and, in our collective teacher paranoia, we suspect the quiet kids are completely unengaged. Or are they? Ian Gilbert, in the preface to his Little Book of Thunks: 260 Questions to Make Your Brain Go Ouch, puts forward a dissenting view: "Just because they are not talking, it doesn't mean they're not joining in. Far from it. Sometimes those who speak most think least. It's the same in the pub."

Predictably, the DfES's guidance has been ridiculed in some parts as being both pointless and gormless. Many have wilfully confused the suggestion that a teacher-led discussion may not always be the best way of prompting debate with a diktat that children must nevermore raise their hands in class or they'll get 'em chopped off. As per usual, it is the "it never did me any harm" brigade making the most noise: teacher-led discussion has been a favoured method of instruction since children were first allowed to speak in class, and experienced teachers don't need telling how, or even whether, to use such a key tool in their armoury.

Or do they? The fact that this technique has been fundamental to a teacher's toolkit since Plato was just a twinkle in his dad's eye doesn't necessarily mean it should remain there. Tools become outmoded: we don't use sheep's jawbones to kill swine any more, nor do we go to war sporting longbows. There are manifold issues with the primacy of this form of instruction in our classrooms, not the least being that it is really very difficult to get right.

Witness the technique used by many a newly qualified teacher to start such a discussion. First, clap your hands and say, "OK". Wait a second and observe the children carrying on their conversations regardless. Clap hands again and in a slightly louder voice, mouth "OK" again, but this time add "then" to let them know you really mean business. Wait a second and note that the noise has died down ... not a bit. Then reach for the Exocet. Bang the desk with the flat palm of the hand, rupturing a tendon in the process, and in a near shout, ruefully intone the word, "Right". Take note of the one head in the class that turns slightly towards you before going straight back to his conversation.

Many a new teacher has entered the profession assuming that leading discussion is an area in which they'll soon sprout wings and fly towards excellence, only to find that they are ritually slaughtered by classes when they try. Turn your back for a minute to record a pupil's thoughts on the board and you'll find paper flying everywhere; you can attempt to open the discussion a hundred times before any of the little buggers allow you to speak, and it seems to be one of those activities that prompts many boys' hands to go into automatic drumming monk ey mode. Running a discussion well is, perhaps, the most technically complex of all teaching techniques, and is the metaphorical rock on which many a fledgling career has run to ground. You must be prepared to insist on utter silence before launching into the debate, ensure that no one is so much as thinking about holding a pen and be prepared to turn a kindly eye to those irritating kids who do the "I'm going to wet myself" dance in their chair to ensure you ask them their opinion first.

Gilbert ably satirises the teacher-led discussion as practised in many schools, suggesting it is actually a thinly veiled version of a traditional and meaningless game by the name of "Guess what's in the teacher's head?"

For me the key issue is that, even with the use of skilled questioning techniques to avoid this, in a class discussion very few people get to express themselves. And this is where the DfES's guidance, I think, is welcome.

What is the point of an exercise in which only a few children ever take part? Organising discussion is an area where the teaching profession has revealed itself to be as creative as it claims. We have come up with the goods time after time. The existence of paired discussion, trios, talking in groups, jigsaws, pairs to fours, expert groups, argument tunnels, verbal tennis or any of the other fantastic techniques available takes the teacher away from the front of the class and gives all students a forum in which they may express themselves and develop their oracy skills. These techniques actually promote independent learning and, in taking the teacher away from the front, take him or her away from both the potential for being abused, and from the position of being the only source of knowledge in the room. There is really no reason, other than lack of preparation time, laziness or fear of noise for any teacher to bother with leading a "hands-up half-hour".

I'll actually extract my hands from my pockets and applaud the DfES's bravery here. There's a very important teacher saying, to which too few professionals pay adherence: "No one ever learned anything from a word search." I wonder whether now would be the time to extend this to include "putting their hands up".